


long wait for something real.

by vipertooths



Series: 1917 [1]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Afterlife, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, POV William Schofield, Post-Canon, Soulmates, a touch of bittersweetness -- yknow cause theyre dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-24 00:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23333653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vipertooths/pseuds/vipertooths
Summary: There are only two thoughts that penetrate the haze of Will's mind: he is dead… and Thomas Blake is waiting for him.
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Series: 1917 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678021
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	long wait for something real.

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 

Will stands in front of an unfamiliar home on the outskirts of an unfamiliar rural town. It is picturesque—green grass interspersed with wildflowers, cherry blossoms lifted through the air on a warm breeze, a cobblestone chimney reaching into the bright, blue sky—but it is little more than background noise to him.

There are only two thoughts that penetrate the haze of his mind: he is dead… and Thomas Blake is waiting for him.

He walks the beaten dirt path to the porch, feeling a swoop in his stomach as he steps up to the door that takes him off guard; he hadn't expected to feel things like nerves in the afterlife, not that he'd thought often about the afterlife at all. He grabs the handle, half expecting his hand to pass through it, but it's solid and cool beneath his fingers, opening with ease. The warm, muted colors of the house greet him.

There is a kitchen to his right, light shining in over the sink, and to his left is the sitting room, where an orange cat peers at him from its spot by the fireplace. His eyes are drawn to the back door though, which has been left wide open. He walks quietly through the open space of the first floor, the smell of coffee and wood surrounding him.

It takes him a moment, once he steps into the back yard, to find Thomas. He's sitting beneath a tree, head down, an arm over one of his knees. Will briefly thinks he's sleeping, but then he lifts his face. The sun glints off the tear tracks on his cheeks, but he doesn't bother to wipe them away.

Standing in front of him again, Will feels a swell of emotions, unnameable, unknowable in their multitude. He reaches out a hand and Tom takes it, allowing himself to be pulled up.

They idle there for awhile, holding onto each other, taking in each other's presence. There is the barest smile on Tom's face, but it's sad. It seems so at odds with this place they're in where contentment seems suffused in the very fabric of its creation.

"You're still so young," Tom says eventually.

"So are you," Will returns.

A beat, a breath, a moment to grieve that their lives were cut so short, and then the feelings drift away, as if pulled out of them.

Their hands are still clasped and Will looks at them, squeezes lightly. Whole, soft, untarnished by blood. He tries to recall how either of them died, but the memory is out of reach. Now that he is thinking of it, there is much he can't seem to remember.

The look of confusion on his face must be clear, because Tom says, "It's for our own peace of mind, the not remembering."

"I remember you."

Tom smiles, but it's not quite right. It's still tinged by sadness. "Who else do you remember?"

He digs through his memories. His mother. A few fellow comrades he had befriended. His childhood dog. "Dead," he says quietly, quickly finding the pattern. He can only recall those already dead.

"Yeah. They aren't gone exactly, just…stored, I guess."

Will nods, processing the information, and finally lets go of Tom's hand to pull him into a hug. He goes readily, sinks into it like it's the greatest relief to rest his forehead on Will's shoulder, and Will thinks he understands the feeling.

It's impossible to tell how long they stay like that; he's instinctively aware that time passes differently here. Maybe it's a ridiculous notion, considering how shortly they were parted, but it feels like they're making up for a lifetime of separation. Maybe death just does that to you, changes your perspective. Or maybe the separation goes deeper than death and they're making up for all the living years they never knew each other too.

Tom pulls back first, looks up at him with considerably dryer eyes. "Fancy a tour?"

"I'm meant to stay here, then?"

"Oh– If there's some other place you'd rather be– I thought– I didn't mean to _assume_."

He puts a hand on Tom's shoulder, effectively stopping the sputtering, and a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Don't hurt yourself. Of course I'll stay here, if you want me to."

Tom huffs and turns for the house, clearly expecting Will to follow. "'Course I want you to," he mutters, low enough that he probably didn't mean for Will to hear him.

He shows Will to the lavatory first, where he gives a cursory and rather inadequate explanation of the 'shower' before sweeping off into the kitchen. The equipment there seems to be top of the line as well, but all things Will is familiar with at the least.

"Do you still eat?" he asks curiously as he peers into a cupboard. He thought hunger would be something you'd leave behind.

"Yes, although I hear you don't _have_ to. It won't kill you not to. But who doesn't like to eat?"

He shuts the cupboard and follows Tom into the sitting room, where he's introduced to the cat he'd seen before. She is appropriately named Mittens, or Mitts for short, due to her white paws, and she purrs affectionately when he rubs her head.

"I didn't think you were the kind of person to have a cat."

"She wasn't mine, exactly. More like...a family cat."

"Do you have any family here? And what is 'here' called anyway?"

"My grandparents, but they're a few days travel from here. The town is Twining, but I assume you mean..." Tom gestures around vaguely. "Heaven? Purgatoire? Jenseits? Depends who you ask. Afterlife seems to be the most agreed upon term."

They head upstairs next, which is only half a floor, a small section of railing allowing you to look down into the room below. Straight ahead of the stairs is a reading alcove where he can immediately tell he'll be spending a good chunk of his time, but he passes up browsing the shelf or exploring the single bedroom to open the double doors to the balcony. 

Tom follows close behind, pointing out the chicken coop, cow stall, well, and their nearest neighbors–two women named Georgia and Odette.

Will leans against the balustrade and closes his eyes, taking in the sounds and scents around him. When Tom joins him, they're close enough that their arms brush, but he doesn't mind it. It's nice to be close to someone. It's nice to be able to enjoy the peace, the real kind, not the fleeting moments between war and pain and sickness and every other awful thing on Earth.

"I made it to the Devons," he says, and he can feel Tom shift to look at him. He doesn't know now why it had been so personally, deeply important that he did so, but it feels like something he should share.

"Good." 

He doesnt think Tom knows either. 

That lack of knowledge might have frustrated him on Earth, but he can't conjure up the same feeling in this place. Nothing seems quite so much in a hurry now; even the act of remembering demands to take its own grand time.

He breathes deep and lets the sunlight warm his face. Briefly, he wonders if it's real, but it's all subjective in the end. It's real to him, which he thinks is all that really matters, so he lets himself enjoy it. 

In the silence, he shuffles through his mind, trying to gauge how much he remembers from his life. He can recall his childhood home, his school, the feeling of his first kiss. He remembers enlisting in the war and the tear soaked patch on his shoulder when he left. It's the people that should be attached to these memories that are missing, as if lost to a fog. When he focuses, he can glean small bits of information, like the color of their eyes or how quick they were to smile or the raspiness of their voice, but nothing whole and concrete.

There's bad memories too, but they're more distant than the good ones, just ghosts of pain and sorrow and rage, like they were laid to rest with his body.

Mostly, he remembers the man beside him, and he's not sure if that's because Tom is clearest in his mind or if it's just because he wants to. Maybe that's what it all comes down to in this place: the wanting. And he thinks that it's got it right, because there's little more he's wanted for the past year than warm light and Thomas Blake.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Will opens his eyes, notes the new position of the sun as it inches closer to the horizon. "Never could stay quiet for long, could you?"

"Shove off."

"Eternal paradise is just going to be eternally listening to you yap my ear off."

"Yeah, well, if you dislike it so much, you can leave."

Will smiles at the quip and at last decides to answer the question. "I was thinking about the sun." _I was thinking about you,_ he doesn't say, but it's a near thing.

Tom stares at him for a moment. "What? For that long?"

"Not all of our heads are empty."

"You shouldn't speak ill of the dead."

He snorts softly at the joke, earning a wide smile in return.

"It's nice to have you here. Not that… it's nice that you died, but, y'know."

"Was it lonely before?"

Tom shakes his head. "I wouldn't say that. But it's still nice that you're here."

Despite the confirmation that people still eat in the afterlife, it takes Will by surprise when he feels a familiar pang in his stomach. "I'm hungry?" It comes out half statement, half question. "I thought you said we didn't have to eat."

Tom laughs quietly and it reverberates up his arm. "It'll go away if you ignore it. But there's plenty to eat here. _Good_ food too, no dog meat and stale bread ends—unless you ask, I suppose."

"Who would I ask?"

"God?" Tom waves a hand toward the sky nebulously. "Whoever runs this. You wish for things and they show up. They have to already exist though. Can’t ask for a flying shoe."

Will hums and pushes away from the balcony, waiting for Tom to take the lead again. He steers them back down the stairs, which creak beneath their feet, an oddly comforting sound.

"What do you do all day?"

"Anything I'd like," Tom says easily, then to himself, "Wonder if there's anything new in town."

"New?" 

He directs Will into a chair and begins shuffling through the kitchen. "It happens sometimes, I'm told, when someone joins a community. There were no cherry trees around until I came. There used to be no lake, either."

"Could you wish for something like that?"

He pauses to consider. "I've never thought about it."

It goes on like that for awhile, Will asking questions and Tom doing his best to answer them. He asks them as the food is prepared, in between bites, after his plate his empty. He learns that Twining is a _community_ and that communities are curated based on their residences, that there is no form of currency—only bartering, that animals are unkillable and meat simply appears in the refrigerator (which he is informed is like an icebox with no ice).

When he finally takes a break to think, Tom whistles low and props his elbows on the table. "I think that's the most I've heard you talk at once. Anything else you want to ask?"

Will remains silent and quirks an eyebrow just slightly.

"You're a natural born funnyman," Tom says dryly.

"Actually, I do have one more question. How long have you been here?"

"A year, about."

Will's suspicion about time moving differently here grows stronger. He doesn't remember exactly when he died, but he's sure it wasn't so long after Tom. He picks the dishes up from the table and brings them to the sink to wash, just for something to occupy himself with. Everything seems so big here—the emotions that wrap around him threefold, the gaps in his memory, the space between him and Tom. Everything is too large, too overwhelming.

He collects the pans from the stove and the empty mug on the counter and puts them into the sink as well, taking his time to wash everything thoroughly. The simple, menial task makes him feel a bit better. It's soothing, somehow, to put his hands to work; it keeps him grounded when he gets too caught up in his head.

Tom joins him with a towel, far closer than he needs to be, and takes the washed dishes one by one from Will's hands.

"I once got my hand stuck in the sink," he says conversationally, and Will barks a laugh from the surprise of it. "See, I was washin' the mud off my toy soldiers and I dropped one right down the drain. I thought, _It can't be too far down, right?_ , so I grabbed a fork and started fishin' round in there, but my hands were still wet and I dropped that in too. Then I started to panic. _Think, Tom, think. What've we got that can get this fork back up?_ "

"Oh no."

"Oh yes. I didn't even care about the soldier anymore. Nobody was going to notice one of my toys missing, but being short a fork?" He shakes his head, smiling at the memory. "So you know what my rubbish six-year-old brain came up with?"

Will shuts the water off and turns to him. "I'm sure whatever I guess, I'll be wrong."

"A magnet! A bloody magnet! So now I've got this magnet pinched between my fingers and I'm hopin' I won't have to put it down very far before it snags the fork. I jam my hand in, reposition my grip on it, and then, of course, I can't pull my hand back out. I could've, if I let go of it, but I was determined not to drop anything else down there. And I was still there, a good hour past, arm numb, fingers aching, when someone came in and found me. Had to take the pipes apart and everything."

Will laughs gently, imagining the scene.

"Wasn't even punished for it. Must've looked like a kicked puppy to get out of that one so cleanly."

He stows the dishes in their respective spots and they drift to the living room, sitting side by side on the sofa. It's like some force of gravity, the way Will is pulled to him, the same now as it had been since they first met. He hadn't thought so back then, but it's clear now just how quickly he'd become attached to this wide-eyed, round-cheeked, brazen idiot of a soldier.

Tom starts talking again, launching into telling him about some of his favorite people in Twining. There's no way Will's going to remember the onslaught of information come morning, but he's content to listen anyway.

The conversation goes on until the sky darkens outside, and it's only when his eyelids grow heavy that he realizes how masterfully Tom had distracted him from his burgeoning crisis, simply my virtue of being himself.

He lets his eyes close, limbs heavy and loose, as a comfortable silence falls over them. "Why were you crying? Earlier?" It's work to get the words out, and even more so to keep his mind awake enough to register the answer.

"I remembered you," Tom says, like it's simple, like that's all the explanation needed.

As Will slips into sleep, he decides that it is.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm currently amidst writing chapter two and thinking this will be a ~~three~~ two chapter fic. 1917 forcibly dragged me out of my depressive non-writing slump to write this and I'm so grateful for it.  
> Also big thanks to my cheerleaders in the 2nd Devons server!  
> Let me know what you think so far! 🥰  
> You can find me on Tumblr @ vipertooth or lancecorpblake.
> 
> Quotes: [x](https://www.aseaofquotes.com/post/137009144225/barry-unsworth-morality-play) [x](https://www.aseaofquotes.com/post/61688316047/peter-heller-the-dog-stars)  
> Title: [x](https://jetlining.tumblr.com/post/611339114441326592/timotaychalamet-the-sacrifice-1986-dir-andrei)


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